Chapter Seven: Sour News
As news of the heist on The Gotham Exchange began to spread, Sofia returned to the sewers to continue working on the Plymouth's powerful engine and watch the footage unfold on the rectangular TV screen.
The moment the activity at The Exchange was heard on police scanners, the rapid response news team at the OWL Newsgroup scrambled to pull together the live broadcast in the wake of Bane's plundering.
The broadcast went live with the luscious Dawn Lemon, looking camera-ready without time for much cosmetic prep, she surely had been picked up by the heel and dipped into the River Styx before Achilles to be blessed with constant grace.
The exciting theme music of Lemon's Drops began, the tune reminiscent of Dawn's alma mater.
Her face came into view as the music turned sour, indicating a bitter event within the city.
"My fellow compatriots, I come to you with dire news for the financial security of us all."
Dawn paused for dramatic effect, tossed her lovely mane of deep brown hair before whipping her head towards a different camera.
"Chaos has come to Gotham City," Dawn stated as footage of Bane inside The Exchange began playing, her voice speaking as the footage was played without sound.
"Look at the ferocity of this masked man, his absolute and total disregard for humanity," Dawn spit accusingly. "This man stormed our city, eviscerated our financial epicenter and outran our police force."
"Look at this man, if that's what you can even call him," she hissed. "Look at this beast corrupting access to your money, affecting the checks and balances within our fragile economy."
Dawn's face again filled the screen, her carefully sculpted eyebrows knitted together, deeply etched concern in her voice, "citizens, where was our illustrious Gotham Police Department during all of this?"
A photograph of Deputy Police Commissioner Peter Foley filled the screen.
The vivid photo had captured Foley at a bachelor parry, his silk necktie loose around his scrawny neck and a drink in each hand.
"Where was this joker when our money was under siege, when animals were running amok on the hallowed grounds of our city's financial institution?"
For exactly two minutes and thirty-seven seconds, Foley's reddened nose, partying face was replaced by footage of the violence at the Exchange.
Each of those seconds captivated every viewer, truly bipartisan to witness the assault on the city's financial infrastructure.
Dawn continued to squeeze the viewer's wallets and poached their financial security fears as she listed the salary of Foley, Gordon and onward through the GPD, even listing Blake, obtaining his Detective shield had given him a healthy pay bump before she was compelled to take a commercial break.
As Sofia glanced up at the screen in between checking spark plugs and oil levels, Bane returned to the sewers, after parking the bike and leaving the helmet on one of the handlebars, he stalked the length of the damp, dim hallways in search of Sofia.
Bane didn't look down as he walked, his massive footfalls disturbed the very air and blew a wave of stagnant air over the flat, plump body of the sewer's lone albino frog, its beady eyes tracked Bane as he walked by.
The frog had just feasted on a few worms that had been wriggling around on the wet concrete floor, the sewer offered a diverse diet, keeping its translucent skin glossy, its ribbit robust.
Sofia looked up from the engine block as the sound of Bane's heavy footfalls heralded his arrival.
She swept her eyes over him as the television screen showed the procession of motorcycles departing The Exchange, followed by a close of The Bat-Pod. "I want one of those," she murmured as she returned to tightening the cap on the transmission fluid.
Bane narrowed his eyes at the stained coveralls that Sofia hadn't taken off since showing up at The Exchange, the heady lemon-scent of the floor cleaner reached his nose through the front of his mask, the astringent detergent had splashed on the cuffs of the coverall as she'd actually run the mop around a trio of fancy shitters on the executive floor of The Exchange.
Bane ignored the news footage and Dawn Lemon's acidic, biting words on the veracity of his character.
"Why were you there?" he asked Sofia as she worked on the engine.
"Why are you here?" she immediately rebutted, ignoring his question.
Bane didn't bother with a reply, instead he walked in a lateral direction, to the tall counter where Sofia had her laptop open, the screen displayed radar flight tracking for the hemisphere and immediate airspace.
Sofia kept an eye on him as she stepped away from the engine and turned the television off, silencing Dawn's angry, inciting rhetoric.
As Dawn named the previous country's president as the catalyst for everything that had ever gone on in the entirety of humanity.
After Sofia wiped her hands on a filthy sky-blue rag, she pressed the start button on her electric teakettle, watching bloated bubbles rise in the clear glass carafe before he repeated his question.
"Why were you there?" Bane asked as he plucked Sofia's oversized sunglasses from amongst a mess of spiral notebooks with the spec's on a variety of engines.
Sofia continued to ignore him as she rooted around her organized mess for two mugs, each heavily chipped.
Bane took his eyes away from Sofia and her blatant insubordination, sweeping his gaze over the top of the worktable, immediately distracted by a narrow bottle filled with what could've passed for water at a casual glance.
His attention was fully on the clear glass that housed a smashed bullet.
The compressed steel was sitting not in water but formalin, a kissing cousin to formaldehyde.
His full attention was at once on the preserved projectile that had been removed from Sofia's chest cavity.
Bane didn't know that the inert lump of metal had nearly taken Sofia's life.
Sofia watched as Bane picked up the small bottle with the tightly sealed lid.
"A souvenir," she told his broad back.
Bane turned around, holding the bottle between his scarred fingertips. "A souvenir?" he echoed as he tilted the bottle up and down, a see-saw within his strong hands.
"A souvenir from selecting a flight team based on the heart," she answered with a wink as she tapped her fingers over her heart, right under the stitched-on name reading, Jackie Napier, Maintenance.
"A souvenir from a poor choice yet you're the only one alive and still standing from the ill-selected flight crew?"
Sofia's lips spread into a wide, beautiful smile, "yes, I'm the only one."
Neither spoke for a few painfully long seconds, it became clear quickly to Bane that Sofia wasn't going to elaborate further on the smashed bullet when she broke the silence.
"Why are you here?"
Bane narrowed his eyes, setting the bottle on the top of the worktable without looking away from her, extending the silence so he could find the answer to that question.
He stepped away from the table, behind his mask, his nostrils flared as he detected the aroma of lingering cloves in the air around Sofia, the underlying smell of her skin growing stronger as he drew closer.
Bane dragged his eyes up and down Sofia's frame, remembering what she felt like under her oversized coveralls.
His eyebrows knitted together in a deep frown as he was immediately reminded of how hasty he'd been, a bitter taste flooded his mouth at the remembrance of how much he'd neglected her body, when he should've savored her.
Bane tore his gaze away from Sofia's unblinking eyes, looking at the computer's flat screen, a bunch of bright green dots mapped out the airspace over a country that was very much not a part of the United Nations.
He scanned the screen, reading some of her notations on brightly colored squares of paper next to the keyboard. "Talia has you searching for something," Bane stated.
He looked back to catch Sofia shrugging noncommittally, "personal research," she murmured as she joined Bane at the worktable, smoothing her fingertip over a cluster of red dots. "Knowing what's in the sky gives me greater control while in the air."
"What's your level of control when your feet are on the ground?" he asked as he stood taller, his back muscles expanding, his chest cavity filling, casting a shadow over her in the sunless world.
Sofia's right eyelid gave an almost imperceptible twitch as she remained rooted to the spot, giving him a lazy smile before she shrugged again, remaining silent.
Her wordlessness infuriated him as he saw himself reach out and close a large hand around her upper arm, tightening his fingers on her flesh through the roughhewn coveralls. "Tell me why you were there today and the purpose of monitoring that airspace," he demanded, his voice strained as his anger challenged the automatic breathing apparatus of his mask.
Sofia narrowed her eyes as she took a sidestep, careful to avoid any optic of retreat, "That's very ungentlemanly of you."
"There's worse."
"Is there?"
"Much."
"Is that a threat?"
"No."
Bane ignored her, never breaking his eyes away from hers, "what are you looking for in those skies?" he asked, his voice a mechanical staccato, the computer screen alight with colors, a lightshow that would herald in death from above.
"It's above your paygrade," Sofia spit, trying to casually pull her arm free of his unbreakable grip.
"I am beneath no one here Miss Bishop, I caution you on continued accusations."
"Aren't you just here for the brute force?" Sofia murmured, a smile threatening to pull up on the corners of her lips as she took a step toward him, pushed against the front of his body with hers. "Aren't you just here for the show of strength, not the brain power?" she added on an ugly hiss.
Bane did not move faster than the C130 that Sofia piloted, but he did move faster than her.
He shot out his other hand to close around her throat, her neck as delicate as a swan within the hand of the hunter.
Bane released her upper arm, raising his hand to wind and weave his scarred fingers through her hair until he could cradle the back of her skull, pulling her closer, delicately despite the death grip he had around her neck, her carotid pulse beat steadily against his palm.
"How do you feel about your control now Miss Bishop?" Bane rasped as he lowered his face until the front of his mask from centimeters from touching her lips, his eyes full of ferocious anger, sparks of amber burst within the burnt caramel of his irises.
Sofia smiled despite how difficult it was beginning to be able to breathe, Bane heard a distinct metallic click that caused a hitch in his respiration, a further disruption of his aerosolized respiratory support before she pressed a butterfly blade against his femoral artery.
"Eight seconds," she whispered. "I'll bleed you in eight seconds before I truss you up fine," she added as she increased the pressure of the stainless-steel blade in the crease of thick flesh where his hip and pelvis met.
Neither blinked for several bloated seconds.
Sofia rose up on her tiptoes, a space no bigger than a breath remained between her lips and the front of his mask.
Behind his mask, Bane's tongue darted out to wet his dry lips before he closed the infinitesimal small space between them, inviting the blade to threaten to lacerate his cargo pants so he could fully press himself against her.
Bane forced a surprised sound to slip from between Sofia's lips when she could feel his cock hardening behind his pants, his length growing rigid, causing a hitch in his mechanical octaves as his voice was reduced to a broken whisper.
"Drop your weapon."
In the small space before Sofia spoke, she was aware of the antiseptic scent that emanated from Bane's mask, a byproduct of the serum delivery system.
"Will you drop yours?" she asked, her voice husky, the syllables practically stuck in her throat.
"No, he growled, his voice an anchor dragging along the seafloor, stirring up shards of shells, desiccated marine bones and murky sediment as he slid his hand from her throat to the dull metal tab of her zipper. "Your clothes are filthy," Bane growled as he pulled the tab, steadily splitting the fabric apart, revealing the curves of her breasts and the mound of scar tissue that stood out on her supple warm flesh.
Sofia allowed Bane to pull the zipper down and part the fabric of her coverall, goosebumps sprouting on the bare skin as Bane traced the rough pads of his fingertips down the front of her body, pausing at the elastic waistband of her panties.
She dropped the knife when Bane slipped a couple fingers under the silky fabric and began to tease her clit to greater and greater sensitivity.
The butterfly blade gave a sharp metallic cry as it landed on the damp cement floor.
They held eye contact, neither blinking nor speaking, save for the small, rapid breaths spilling from between Sofia's lips as he slid his fingertips through her silken intimate folds, the tissue growing wetter as he bobbed his fingertip into her tight opening.
His cock grew painfully hard as he slid his finger deep into her intimate opening, his rigid length pulsing with each beat of his heart.
Bane slid his other hand from her silken fall of hair to settle on her waist and clumsily pulled her closer.
He groaned melodically as he lifted her, settling her on top of the worktable's cluttered surface, pushing the laptop out of the way as he tore his pants open, fumbling his cock free.
Sofia's breath rate climbed as high as Bane's as a guttural growl of frustration tore through his massive chest when he struggled to get complete access to her intimacy.
He grunted and tore the fabric obscuring her wetness.
Sofia echoed Bane's grunt as he drove his thickness inside her in one fluid movement, stabbing her wetness with his rigid length.
His steady thrusting would leave her with a lingering delicious achiness low in her belly.
Sofia settled her hands on the smooth caps of his shoulders, her fingertips firm points of pressure as he tightened his grip on her hips, steadily driving his cock into her, each time he plunged until their bodies met with a wet slap.
Each upwards thrust of his hips brought him closer to wanting to come, each deep plunge into her wetness made his cock throb with greater frenetic energy, begging for release.
Behind his mask, Bane clenched his teeth until his jaw pop, plagued with thoughts of the first time he'd hastily fucked her, how'd he squandered the naked landscape of her naked flesh.
Sofia arched against Bane as the tip of his cock plunged into the spongy nerve cluster deep inside her, pushing her into ecstasy, forcing Bane's pleasure to peak as her pussy's wet walls tightened around his rigid cock, massaging his length as his control rapidly waned.
They remained wordless, both of their breathing erratic. Sofia gave a disappointing groan as his cock softened and slid out of her.
Bane felt words threaten to spill from between his scarred lips, saved from revealing any glimpse of his vulnerability when the tea kettle gave five delicate chimes.
Bane was torn between keeping his hands glued to her body, his fingertips itching to explore her further but forced himself to lower her to the floor, lifting his hands as soon as her feet touched the ground.
Sofia pulled her coveralls back together as much as the torn fabric would allow before she walked across the room to pour the boiling water over an infuser full of loose leaves and other flora with healing properties.
She handed Bane the mug of tea which he would only inhale, the porcelain dwarfed by his large hands.
The distinct aroma of slippery elm, sprinkled with marigolds warmed by the water reached his nose.
"Tell me what happened in the Pit," Sofia murmured as she settled across from him, the steam from her own steaming mug of tea tickling her nose.
Bane would talk until the tea turned cold.
